Episode Details

Steve McQueen spent his childhood in reform schools and on the streets before joining the Marines. He brought that survival instinct to every role, projecting a cool so effortless that audiences never saw the damage underneath. The King of Cool was a title he earned the hard way.

This episode traces McQueen from his troubled youth through his rise as the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, his obsession with racing, and the cancer that killed him at fifty.

• He spent time in reform school as a teenager before enlisting in the U.S. Marines
• He did many of his own stunts, including the famous car chase in Bullitt
• He was the highest-paid movie star in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s
• He died of mesothelioma at fifty, likely caused by asbestos exposure during his Marine service